NEW BEDFORD, Mass. (AP) – A Buzzards Bay environmental advocacy group is endorsing a controversial plan to build an electricity-generating wind farm off the shore of Cape Cod.

The Coalition for Buzzards Bay says the Nantucket Sound project would reduce the region’s reliance on fossil fuels, reduce pollution from power plants, and make oil spills less likely.

“From where we are right now, we hope the project happens,” Mark Rasmussen, the group’s executive director, told the Standard-Times of New Bedford. “The region can start benefiting from a large source of renewable energy.”

The coalition, which planned to announce its support Friday, was motivated by the spillage of 98,000 gallons of oil in Buzzards Bay by a Bouchard Transportation Co. barge in April 2003.

The barge struck a rocky ledge, spilled the oil and polluted 100 miles of shoreline. The spill killed more than 460 birds and shut down nearly 100,000 acres of shellfish beds. Bouchard was fined $10 million by the state.

The wind farm would consist of 130 turbines standing more than 420 feet high in Nantucket Sound. The turbines would generate 420 megawatts of electricity at peak times, supplying nearly three-quarters of the power used on the cape and islands.

Opponents, including Gov. Mitt Romney and U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy, say the turbines would harm wildlife, destroy the offshore view and harm the fishing and boating industries.

But they have little control over it, since it’s planned for federal water. So, they are trying to redefine the state’s coastline in a move that could give them more control.

Officials said a recently discovered pile of rocks in Nantucket Sound could change the state’s offshore border and expand state-controlled water by about 12 square miles. That would push back federal territorial water and could affect a developer’s bid to erect the nation’s first offshore wind power farm in the sound.

States are allowed to count as part of their area any naturally occurring offshore rocks that are exposed at median low tide. State water extends three miles from where officials draw the border.

Mark Rodgers, a spokesman for Cape Wind Associates, the project’s developer, has said he had not seen the border change proposal, but doubted it would seriously affect the project.